Romania Feed

Almost half of Romanians watch sports, matches and sports competitions on their smartphones, and six out of ten Romanians watch football on their mobile phones, according to a survey conducted by OPPO on a nationally relevant sample of 1,376 respondents.

Andreea Mihai has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of real estate developer HAGAG Development Europe.

Retail pharmacy chain DONA, which owns 320 pharmacies of its own and almost 30 franchised, plans to expand countrywide, to smaller cities where it does not have a presence yet, DONA chief financial officer Rares Marculet said during the ZF Health&Pharma Summit’22 on Tuesday.

Cluj-based software development company RebelDot is opening its third office in Romania and the company’s main head office, in Cluj-Napoca, within the Buftea Business Center, adapted to the hybrid way of working.

The new five-star Radisson Blu Aurum hotel in Brasov (central Romania) will be inaugurated on October 16 following an investment of EUR16.3 million, almost EUR3 million above the amount initially estimated.

The most in-demand jobs in the IT industry in Romania are interface developer, software engineer, security specialist, big data analyst and quality assurance specialist, according to Undelucram.ro, the largest online community of employees in Romania.

Romania’s insurance market reached a volume of underwritten gross premiums of RON8.76 billion in the first half of 2022, up 44% compared with the year-ago period, the country’s Financial Supervisory Authority (ASF) said in its latest report on the evolution of the insurance market.

Romania’s general consolidated budget posted RON32.98 billion deficit in the first eight months of 2022, lower than the RON39.36 billion level reported in the year-ago period, in line with finance ministry data.

Autonom Services, the mobility network controlled by brothers Marius and Dan Stefan, has received EUR15 million backing from the European Investment Bank to increase its e-car fleet.

2022 is the year of accelerated expansion for optical retailer Lensa as the company already opened 16 new stores in the first nine months and plans to launch another four this year, explained Nicoleta Dumitrescu, operations manager at Lensa.

Romania’s Competition Council on Monday (Sept 26) announced that it approved the takeover of several companies in the wind energy sector by GIP Gutenberg.

Domeniile Ostrov, a 1,300-hectare vineyard in Constanta County, located on the right bank of the Danube, on the Romanian border with Bulgaria, posted sales of RON20 million in the first six months of 2022, up 7% from the same period last year, company representatives say.

The ranking of cities with the most modern commercial spaces is led by capital Bucharest which is followed by Timisoara, Cluj-Napoca, Iasi, Constanta and Brasov, considering that investors exponentially increased the number of retail parks and the total surface area of new spaces delivered in shopping centers over the last three years and for 2022, it is estimated a record area, as per data from Fortim Trusted Advisors, a member of the BNP Paribas Real Estate Alliance.

The European Investment Bank on Monday (Sept 26) announced that Romania has formally requested a co-financing of EUR4 billion for investments in the country's heath and transport sectors.

Chimcomplex (CHOB.RO), which owns the Oltchim and Borzesti chemical plants in Romania, has notified the Bucharest Stock Exchange of a planned collective redundancy program, which will include 396 employees, in an attempt to cope with rising power prices, as the group is one of the largest consumers of natural gas in the country.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has revised upwards its forecast on Romania’s economic growth to 4.8% for 2022, from a previous projection of 3.5% in summer.

The war in Ukraine has caused entrepreneurs in major industries to reduce production and sales forecasts for the next two years, according to international rating agency Standard&Poor’s (S&P) Global Ratings.

The US dollar hit a new record high against the Romanian currency on Monday (Sept 26), as the central bank’s average reference rate stood at 5.1135 lei to the dollar.

ROCA Industry, the construction material holding company of ROCA Investments, continues to expand its portfolio along with the completion of the transaction set off in April 2022 whereby it fully acquired wire product manufacturer Dial based in the locality of Harsova (Constanta County).

Connections Consult (CC.RO), a Romanian company specialized in providing software and IT services, said in a stock market report that it ended the first half of 2022 with operating income of RON25.2 million, up 21% from RON20.8 million reported in the same interval of 2021.